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Introduction

U.S. Navy Photo

The art of finding the way from one place to another is called navigation. Until the 20th century, the term referred mainly to guiding ships across the seas. Indeed, the word navigate comes from the Latin navis, meaning “ship,” and agere, meaning “to move or direct.” Today, however, the word also encompasses the guidance of travel on land, in the air, and in inner and outer space. (For a discussion of navigation in the air, seeaviation.)

Marine Navigation

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There are four basic methods of navigation at sea—piloting, dead reckoning, electronic navigation, and celestial navigation.

In piloting, the navigator directs a vessel from one place to another by observing such landmarks on Earth’s surface as lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and prominent rocks and cliffs, and by measurements, called soundings, of water depths. In dead reckoning, the navigator determines a ship’s position by keeping a careful account, or reckoning, of the distance and direction of travel from a known position called the point of departure.

In electronic navigation, the navigator determines a ship’s position with the aid of such systems as GPS or radar. These instruments variously make use of differences in the times of arrival of radio signals sent simultaneously from different locations, of the directional properties of radio waves, or—occasionally—of the difference in speed between radio waves and sound waves. In celestial navigation, the navigator finds a ship’s position by observing the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars.

General Concepts

Course, heading, and track

The terms course, heading, and track are often loosely used. They should, however, be considered to have the meanings that follow. The course is the intended direction of the ship’s travel. The heading is the direction in which the ship is pointed at any given time. The track, or course made good, is the direction of a straight line between a point of departure and a present position.

The factors that together result in failure to make good an intended course are termed drift. The flow of ocean water, however, is only one of the factors involved. (See alsoocean; ocean waves and tides; oceanography.)

Direction and distance

On Earth’s surface each meridian, or line of longitude, is half of a great circle that passes through Earth’s geographical poles and lies in a true north-and-south direction (seelatitude and longitude). The center of a great circle on Earth’s surface lies at Earth’s center. The shortest distance between two points on Earth’s surface is the shorter arc of a great circle passing through the points.

The track of a ship that sails along a great circle will cross each meridian at a different angle—unless the ship is sailing directly along a meridian or the Equator. The ship’s direction, then, would usually have to be altered constantly in order to maintain a perfect great-circle course.

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In practice, however, a ship’s course is changed at regular intervals—of perhaps several hours—so that the ship follows a series of rhumb lines that approximates a great circle. A rhumb line is a line on Earth’s surface that crosses all meridians at the same angle. A ship sailing a steady, true course is usually following a rhumb line, and the distance it covers is greater than that of a great-circle course. (See alsodirections.)

The instruments of navigation

One of the basic tools of the marine navigator is the nautical chart. This is a representation, drawn to scale, of the water and land areas of a particular region of Earth’s surface.

On the chart the navigator keeps a graphic record of the ship’s progress. Such a record is kept regardless of the method—or combination of methods—of navigation that is being used. Lines drawn between successive positions marked on the chart indicate at a glance the courses that the ship has followed. From scales on the chart the navigator can measure directly, without computation, the distance that the ship has traveled.

Traditionally, Mercator charts have been used at sea (seemaps and globes). Lambert charts may also be used for long sea voyages, though they were designed for air navigation.

A navigator needs other basic instruments to determine a course and plot it on a chart. A compass indicates direction. Dividers are useful in measuring distances on charts (seemechanical drawing). Parallel rulers—usually two straightedges connected by pivoted arms—are used to transfer lines of direction from one portion of a chart to another. A transparent plotter is a combination protractor and straightedge employed in the measurement of angles and distances and in drawing course lines on a chart.

In directing a course by dead reckoning, a device that measures distance traveled is also essential to the navigator. These distance-measuring devices include taffrail logs, or patent logs, and engine-revolution counters. (See alsoship’s log.)

Piloting

Bearings

In piloting, the navigator guides a ship largely by the bearings of landmarks. A bearing is the horizontal angle between an object and a reference point—for example, true north is the reference point for true bearings. Bearings are usually measured clockwise from 0° at the reference point through 360° and expressed in three digits, as 028°.

Bearings are used to determine, or fix, a ship’s position. Drawn on a chart, a bearing forms a line of position—a line on which some point must represent the ship’s location. Therefore, when two or more bearings intersect (cross-bearings), the intersection must represent the ship’s position.

Bearings of visible objects may be measured with such instruments as the alidade, pelorus, or azimuth circle. These devices usually have sighting vanes and reference circles graduated in degrees. Bearings referred to a magnetic compass must be corrected for compass errors—deviation and magnetic variation.

When only one landmark is visible, a ship’s position can be fixed by determining the bearing of the object and then measuring the distance to it with a range finder or a stadimeter. The range finder is an optical instrument for measuring the distance to any clearly defined object. If the height of the object is known, the stadimeter may be used. It operates on the principle that the closer an object is, the bigger it appears to be.

Soundings

In shallow water, soundings help fix a ship’s position. Sonic, or echo, depth finders make use of the known speed of sound in water. Sound transmitted from the ship is reflected from the ocean floor to a receiver, which measures elapsed time and calculates distance. Some devices produce fathograms—continuous profiles, or graphs, of the ocean bottom. An older depth-finding device is the hand lead and line—a marked cord with a weight on the end.

Navigational lights and buoys

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Light stations and lightships are maintained along coastlines to warn approaching ships of potential dangers such as off-lying rocks. Most lights operate in on-and-off cycles. The length of time required for a light to complete a full cycle of changes is called the period of the light. Lights that are “off” longer than they are “on” are called flashing lights. Occulting lights are “on” as long as, or longer than, they are “off.”

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Adam Gruen Krellenstein

Floating navigational aids (other than lightships and weather ships) which are anchored or moored are called buoys. United States waters are marked for safe navigation by the lateral system of buoyage. Simple arrangements of colors, shapes, numbers, and lights are employed to indicate the side of a buoy on which a ship should pass when moving in a given direction.

Dead Reckoning

In dead reckoning, the navigator estimates a ship’s position by keeping a careful record of its movement. The initial point of departure for dead reckoning is usually the last fix the navigator obtains from objects on land at the start of a voyage. From this point, true courses steered and distances traveled (as recorded by log) are plotted on a chart.

Points along the dead-reckoning line, representing successive positions of the ship, are labeled with the appropriate time and the notation “D.R.” Dead reckoning commonly begins anew each time bearings, celestial observations, or electronic aids provide an accurate fix. The dead-reckoning line on his chart is important to the navigator because it indicates at a glance the theoretical position of the ship, the track the ship should have followed, and the direction in which the ship is traveling.

Electronic Navigation

Modern electronic devices are important aids in finding position at sea. GPS (Global Positioning System) has proved invaluable for quickly determining a ship’s latitude and longitude with great precision anywhere in the world. An electronic GPS device onboard the ship receives radio signals from a fleet of satellites orbiting Earth. By calculating the ship’s distance from four or more satellites, the receiver is able to pinpoint the ship’s location. The system also provides accurate velocity readings.

Other electronic devices have also been developed, though many have been superseded by GPS. Radar remains of value, especially for a ship near the shore. In the past, radio direction finders were commonly used to determine the bearings of radio transmitting stations on shore. Special radio beacons for navigation were established at lighthouses, lightships, and prominent points along coasts. Radio bearings could be plotted on a chart to obtain a fix. For many years, the long-range radio navigation system Loran-C was used to determine ships’ positions in waters off the U.S. and Canadian coasts. The system was discontinued, however, in 2010. The similar Decca service was formerly used in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe.

Celestial Navigation

For centuries sailors have guided their ships across the oceans by celestial navigation, or nautical astronomy. This is the art of finding position by observing the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets. (See alsosolar system.)

As they journey for some distance, travelers observe that the celestial bodies appear to change their paths across the sky and to rise and set at new points along the horizon. Since the apparent positions of celestial bodies thus change with time and with changes in an observer’s position on the nearly spherical Earth, the location of a ship or other craft may be determined by careful observations of celestial bodies.

The celestial sphere

Celestial bodies, such as the stars, are so far from Earth that they appear to be located on the inside surface of an imaginary hollow sphere. This sphere, which has an infinite radius, is called the celestial sphere. Its center coincides with the center of Earth. All points on Earth’s surface are considered to be projected onto the celestial sphere, as are the Equator, the parallels of latitude, and the meridians.

For the purpose of navigation, a system of coordinates is required on the celestial sphere in order that the position of a celestial body at any time may be accurately described. One such system is the celestial equator, or equinoctial, system.

In this system the celestial equator, or equinoctial, is the base, or primary, circle. It corresponds to Earth’s Equator. At right angles to the celestial equator are the hour circles. An hour circle is a great circle on the celestial sphere that passes through the poles and through a celestial body or point. Each meridian of the celestial sphere is identical with an hour circle.

The declination (dec.) of any point on the celestial sphere is its angular distance north or south from the celestial equator, measured along the hour circle that passes through the point. Declination on the celestial sphere corresponds to latitude on Earth’s surface.

The Greenwich hour angle (GHA) of any point or body is the angle, measured at the pole of the celestial sphere, between the celestial meridian of Greenwich and the hour circle of the point. The angle is measured along the celestial equator westward from the Greenwich celestial meridian, from 0° through 360°. The GHA differs from longitude on Earth’s surface in that longitude is measured east or west, from 0° through 180°, and remains constant. The GHA of a body, however, increases through each day as Earth rotates.

The theory of celestial navigation

At any instant of time every celestial body is directly above—or in the zenith of—some point on Earth’s surface. This point lies on a line connecting the body and the center of Earth. It is called the geographical position, or GP, of the body. Sometimes the GP of the Sun is called the subsolar point; that of the Moon, the sublunar point; and that of a star, its substellar point.

A line from the center of Earth through the GP of an observer would extend to a point on the celestial sphere. This point is called the zenith of the observer; the line is his local vertical.

The altitude of a celestial body is the angle, measured by an observer on Earth, between the body and the horizon. Were a celestial body—say, a star—directly above, or in the zenith of, an observer, its altitude would be 90°. The observer would be at the GP of the star.

Were the observer a distance away from the GP of a star, however, the altitude of the star would be less than 90° by an amount proportional to the distance. On the celestial sphere, the observer’s zenith would be apart from the star by a distance called the zenith distance, or ZD.

All points a given ZD from a star would form around the star a circle of radius equal to the ZD. Were lines from all points on the circle extended to the center of Earth, a similar circle would be formed on Earth’s surface. From any point on this circle, the observed altitude of the star would be the same; hence, it is called a circle of equal altitude. Its center is the GP of the star. A second circle of equal altitude would exist around the GP of a second star. Ordinarily, the circles would intersect in two widely separated points. One of these points, of course, would be the position of the observer on the surface of Earth.

Celestial navigation at sea

To put this theory into practice, a navigator measures with a sextant the altitudes of two or more celestial bodies. He carefully notes—to the second—the time at which he made his observations. He obtains the time from radio signals or from accurate clocks called chronometers. These are kept set to Greenwich mean time, or GMT, for this is the time the navigator must know as he turns next to a nautical almanac.

A nautical almanac, such as that jointly published by the U.S. Naval Office and the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, is a book of astronomical tables. From these tables may be found, for every second of every day, the positions on the celestial sphere of the Sun, the stars, the Moon, and the planets used in navigation. The positions are given in declination and GHA. From them, of course, the latitude and longitude of the bodies’ GPs may be found.

Knowing the altitudes of the bodies he observed and their GPs at the time, the navigator has the information necessary to construct the circles of equal altitude that define his position. Actually, the navigator does not plot on his chart the full circles. From dead reckoning or other means, he knows his approximate latitude and longitude. All he needs, then, are segments of the circles so short that, without practical loss of accuracy, they may be drawn as straight lines. Like the lines obtained from bearings in piloting, they are called lines of position.

Underwater Navigation

The areas below Earth’s surface, which include the ocean depths and ocean floors, are a newer frontier in navigation (seeoceanography). The development of such devices as the pressure demand valve has enabled sea divers to descend to depths of several hundred feet. Special mixtures of gases for breathing, which reduce the effects of the bends, have also been developed. Undersea explorers have made dives in submersible vehicles to depths in excess of 6 miles (9.6 kilometers). Some have lived for weeks on end in undersea “houses,” emerging as they wish to explore the ocean floor.

The Challenge of Underwater Navigation

Operations within the ocean depths, like those at sea, in the air, and in space, are governed by natural physical laws. Unique problems, however, are encountered below the ocean surface. An example is the great pressure of the water in the depths of the ocean—just the reverse of the near vacuum, or lack of pressure, in outer space.

The flow of ocean currents, temperature gradients, and lack of visibility without the use of artificial lights also makes oceanographic navigation a difficult procedure. The methods of celestial navigation, such visual aids to navigation as buoys, and most electronic methods are not usable.

The Continental Shelf

Around each continent is an area, of varying distance from shore, that lies in water of relatively shallow depth. It is called the continental shelf. In some of these areas, submerged river channels can be traced well out to sea. Mariners and ocean navigators use those submerged channels that have been charted as aids in navigation.

The ocean currents of the world have also been charted. The ocean floor is being charted in greater detail and at greater depths than ever before. This is being done partly to meet the requirements of antisubmarine defenses. Electronic depth-finding instruments have produced much data for charts of the ocean floor. In recent years major advances have been made in underwater archaeology, in oceanography, and in meteorology. (See alsoocean, “Oceanic Exploration”; sonar.)

Submarine Navigation

A submarine is navigated underwater with the aid of an electronic inertial guidance system. Essentially a sophisticated dead-reckoning device, the system keeps track of the submarine’s motion from a known starting position. It does so by continually monitoring the craft’s position, velocity, and acceleration, thus providing navigational data without the need for communicating with a base station.

An inertial guidance system has three basic components: gyroscopes, accelerometers, and a computer. Gyroscopes are instruments that detect the submarine’s turns, while accelerometers measure changes in its velocity. The computer processes the information on changes in direction and acceleration and feeds its results to the vehicle’s navigation system.

As with any other dead-reckoning system, small errors made with an inertial guidance system can add up to large ones over time. However, nuclear-powered submarines have traveled under the north polar ice cap, guided solely by inertial systems, with errors of less than a mile per week. Typically, submarines periodically return to the surface to check their positions with an independent navigation system such as GPS. This allows the navigators to realign the inertial system.

Space Navigation

NASA

Traveling from point A to point B in space is almost never in a straight line or at constant velocity because of the many influences on the body in motion. As in submarine navigation, the basis for space navigation is inertial guidance. By the use of three gyroscopes and accelerometers, a spacecraft’s navigation system can make precise measurements of any change in velocity, either positive or negative, along any or all of the three principal axes. A spacecraft can make corrections to its flight path by rotating about one or more axes and firing its thrust motors.

Inertial guidance systems, no matter how accurate, are subject to tiny errors that can accumulate over long voyages to significant departures from the required path. For this reason, many planetary-exploration spacecraft employ a star tracker, whose small telescope tracks several preprogrammed stars. The tracker thus provides an accurate continuous celestial “fix” on the spacecraft’s position and directs the spacecraft’s computer to correct the inertial guidance system. When sufficient funding is available, some deep-space probes are monitored on Earth by human flight controllers. The flight controllers send commands to the spacecraft’s computer from time to time to correct the spacecraft’s course. When two spacecraft are going to meet and dock, radar data inform the crew—or, in the case of automated maneuvers, the computer—of any course corrections required. Spacecraft in Earth orbit can use GPS to verify their locations and velocities with a high degree of accuracy. (See alsospace exploration.)

History of Navigation

The navigation of rivers, lakes, and oceans began before recorded history. Navigation, because of its relationship and importance to transportation, has played a leading part in the advancement of civilization. People learned early that travel by water was a convenient means of transporting their goods of trade to other lands (seeship and shipping; boating). The people living near the Mediterranean Sea—the Sumerians, Cretans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Greeks—became able mariners, as did the Scandinavians in northern Europe. In the Pacific Ocean the Lapita people and later their descendents, the Polynesians, navigated across great distances to settle new islands. (See alsoAegean civilization; Phoenicia; Scandinavia; Australia and the Pacific Islands, exploration of, “Polynesian Exploration.”)

Most early mariners did not venture very far from the coasts. Skirting the coastlines, they could identify objects on land and thereby know the positions of their ships. Usually they traveled by day and went ashore at night. They did not have nautical charts, but sometimes they found their way by a list of directions. The Romans called such a list a periplus. It gave details of landmarks, good anchorages, and such hazards as shoals and reefs.

Early Developments in Navigation

The Phoenicians and Greeks were the first of the Mediterranean sailors to navigate far from land and to sail at night. They made primitive charts and knew a crude form of dead reckoning. They used observations of the Sun and the North Star, or polestar, to determine directions. They estimated distances from the time it took to cover them.

Advances in seamanship—the art of handling a ship—kept pace with advances in navigation. The Egyptians used rowers, and the Phoenicians and Greeks increased the number of tiers of rowers. The Greeks added a second mast, in the bow, and the Romans a third mast, in the stern.

The First Navigational Aids

One great aid to navigation was the development of the magnetic compass. Although the magnetic properties of the lodestone were known since ancient times, the first use of the magnetic compass by navigators appears to have been in the 12th century in China and Europe. In the next century the Italians began making a type of chart called a portolano. It showed an outline of the coast and had crosslines to aid in finding directions.

Navigators at this time also used the cross-staff and the astrolabe, two devices that the Greeks had invented to measure the altitudes of celestial bodies. From these measurements it was possible to determine the approximate latitude of the vessel as well as approximate local time. The simplest version of the cross-staff was a stick, or staff, about one yard (0.9 meter) long with a shorter sliding stick set at right angles to the staff. The navigator pointed the staff at a spot about halfway between the horizon and the Sun or other star. The crosspiece was then moved until the sights at its ends were in line with both the observed body and the horizon. A scale along the staff showed the altitude, or angle above the horizon, of the body.

The Granger Collection, New York

The astrolabe was a disk of brass or bronze, from 4 to 20 inches (10 to 50 centimeters) in diameter. A pointer, called an alidade, was pivoted at the center of the disk. One person held the astrolabe by a small ring at the top while another person knelt facing the rim of the instrument. The person kneeling pointed the alidade at the Sun or other star and read the angle from the markings on the disk.

Such great explorers as Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan made their voyages with these aids to navigation. The instruments, however, were not satisfactory, and for some two centuries after Columbus, no clock could keep time well enough to aid in fixing longitude.

From the 17th Century to the Present

In the 17th century Britain, France, and other maritime countries actively began to aid the development of navigation. Astronomical observatories were established to provide almanacs. Mapmaking and the invention of required navigational instruments were also encouraged.

In 1731 John Hadley, an Englishman, and Thomas Godfrey, an American, simultaneously invented a quadrant that made it possible to obtain accurate observations of celestial bodies. The instrument was similar to the sextant in common use today. The problem of fixing longitude was solved when John Harrison in England produced several chronometers (very accurate timekeeping devices) between 1730 and 1763. Pierre LeRoy in France built an improved chronometer in 1766. Captain James Cook’s voyages of discovery in the Pacific Ocean at this time proved the accuracy and reliability of navigational instruments and techniques.

Early in the 19th century Nathaniel Bowditch of Salem, Mass., devised many improved methods of navigation. In 1837 Capt. Thomas Sumner devised a trigonometric method of obtaining from celestial observations the lines known as Sumner lines of position. In 1875 Frenchman Marcq St. Hilaire improved upon Sumner’s trigonometric calculations. These calculations were later used to supplement dead reckoning, a more precise method of correcting for drift using triangular calculations of velocity. Dead reckoning allows a navigator to plot where a craft will be at any time, making it possible to plan a journey in its entirety before the start of the journey. Matthew Fontaine Maury made famous studies of wind and weather and helped in the development of government aids to navigation.

U.S. Navy

In the 20th century electronic devices such as radar and Loran were widely adopted for use in navigation. Today most vessels use an automatic pilot, an electronic device for controlling a vehicle without constant human intervention. The use of GPS has become standard in both military and civilian navigation. The U.S. Air Force launched the first experimental GPS satellite in 1978, and in 1995 the U.S. Navstar GPS system became fully operational. The human navigator is becoming more and more a manager of computer systems; however, there is no substitute for human judgment to deal with the occasional unexpected situation.

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